Much of the original rationale for negotiating an FTA with New Zealand was the looming competition of TPP, which was bound to negatively affect EU trade with Asian countries through trade diversion. Now that TPP was put on ice by President Trump and New Zealand accounts for only 0.2% of EU external trade, why should we bother and go through the mess of negotiating an FTA with the country?

The Asia-Pacific remains the fastest growing and most dynamic economic region [growing above 6% the coming five years under any scenario]. The US, under a pronounced mercantilist disposition, led under a business man is unlikely to change the focus on Asia-Pacific. It is not entirely given that President Trump will scuttle or renegotiate TPP – even if he fully withdraws, the regional agreement is likely to convert to several US-centric bilateral agreements.

While it is true that an FTA with New Zealand should not be justified by export gains alone, the current low volumes of trade merely reveals its potential. The size of the New Zealand is still on par with previous EU FTA partners like Peru and Vietnam. In measurements that really count – such as final consumption, in other words actual demand for goods and services in the country – New Zealand is larger than most previous EU FTA partners, including Chile, Malaysia or Singapore. So if these FTAs were worth doing, New Zealand must be too.

And regardless of whether there is any competitive pressure from the US, the EU is still desperate to upgrade its FTA model beyond just tariffs. The transatlantic agreement failed our Europe’s inability to strike an ambitious regulatory chapter with the Obama administration. In hindsight, that is not surprising: the EU had very few prior regulatory cooperation with US regulators, yet tried to set a gold standard in TTIP. In contrast, the EU has more pre-existing arrangements for regulatory cooperation with New Zealand than any other country outside Europe, including defensive areas such as data privacy and agriculture. Europe does not have many opportunities to new trade disciplines with a like-minded country open enough to let us do so.

What about areas that have stirred up controversy in the context of the CETA and TTIP negotiations, like regulatory cooperation, food safety or public procurement? Would they not play a similar role in the negotiations with New Zealand? Do you see any other obstacles for the negotiations?

Firstly, we already have advanced regulatory cooperation with New Zealand through several mutual recognition agreements thanks to the high quality of New Zealand’s standards on regulation and supply chain security. There are even European officials who think we are able cooperate with New Zealand in manners we can’t even do internally within the EU. Besides, the EU has already liberalised New Zealand’s key export items, such as sheep meat. These quotas are even underused. Overall, New Zealand has less arable land than Estonia – with most of its farm exports eaten by China anyway. Similarly, the public procurement markets are already open and non-discriminatory in both economies.

Many of the usual negotiating hurdles are non-issues. On the contrary, many of the hurdles to previous EU negotiations are an incentive for cooperation in order to build trade standards modelled on EU interests.

Which recommendation would you give to politicians in order to secure the success of these negotiations?

There is a reason why many countries negotiate their first FTAs with New Zealand – it’s a liberal and high quality market that score consistently in the top three or the very top of the global rankings on human rights, rule of law and ease of doing business; they are experienced negotiators, yet perhaps the only modern economy who do not negotiate from its own FTA template, and instead let its counterparts develop their own models for FTAs – New Zealand was even flexible enough to land a high-quality agreement with ASEAN, Taiwan and China. In a sense, New Zealanders are the midwives of FTA driven liberalisation in Asia. If Europe fails its New Zealand negotiations, it would send a clear signal to the world that Europe is too ungovernable and inward looking to conclude any FTA.